The 1980s were a chance to recoup and recover from the 1970s. They were a "second chance" for the USA, and the USA blew it. But if you look at television from the 1980s, especially the mid to late 1980s, you will see bright and flashy colors and people actually feeling good. The same with the rock music of that era. My wife, being a bit younger than myself, asked me why the 1980s were that way. I said that people were celebrating that the 1970s were actually over.
The 1970s sucked. The decade started with Nixon in office, having started his first term in 1969. That made a lot of people angry, mostly because he showed that unlike his previous race for president he can win in a fair election. He was supposed to end the Vietnam war, which he eventually did, but first he expanded it, and that also made people angry. When he did finally end it that made different people angry. The hippies, of which there were still some, should have liked that he ended the war but they didn't because he was Nixon.
The economy was spiraling down the drain. Nixon took some emergency measures in 1971 that made things worse. The worst one is one we are still suffering from today, severing the final link between the dollar and gold, but only weirdos like me think that is bad. He also enacted wage and price controls, which convinced the libertarians of that era to finally found the Libertarian Party because, as people at FRDB think, anything a Republican does in the economy is supposedly automatically approved of by libertarians even if it is wage and price controls. (Many at FRDB don't understand that Republicans and Libertarians disagree fiercely about economics.) Just when one war was ending it was Nixon who brought us the drug war. There are those at FRDB who probably think libertarians approve of that as well because Nixon was a Republican.
Nixon himself wasn't an exceptional president in any respect. He was pretty middle of the road on most issues. Ideologically he could have fit in with either party, but he was committed to one party.
Due to paying for the Vietnam war (which continued long after the war ended) and also paying for Johnson's Great Society, inflation went up. Nixon had to deal with that, and he did so poorly. But then he got caught being a politician and was impeached. This led to Ford being president, the most unusual situation this country has faced because Ford was appointed to Vice President instead of being elected.
Still the economy was experiencing stagflation due to the Vietnam War and the Great Society.
Ford didn't stand a chance at re-election, which paved the way for Carter. He is remembered poorly although he is much better than he gets credit for being. The problem is, most people remember a president well if he likes killing foreigners. Carter disliked that so much that he actually carried messages between two rooms so that diplomats from two countries that wouldn't even be in the same room with each other would still communicate with each other. That was noble. That was great. It was his greatest moment in my opinion.
He also appointed Paul Volker to the Federal Reserve. Now politicians usually have little courage, but they find it easy to rely on someone else's courage. Volker had courage, and Carter could support that. Volker said "I've got to stop this inflation." So he raised interest rates over and over until finally they beat inflation. It didn't do much good for the economy in the short run but the short run is all most people remember.
There is one job of the President that isn't in the job description but is still part of the job - national cheerleader. Carter did that very poorly. And so, with the economy hurting due to Volker's medicine (and it was the pain of treatment instead of the pain of illness) Carter lost to Reagan who was a much better cheerleader.
Reagan also relied on Volker's courage, and the first few years of Reagan's first term also experienced the pain of treatment. But in the end Volker beat inflation and Volker finally relented and lowered interest rates.
With all that over, people started to feel something strange. They breathed deeply and said "wait a minute, things don't suck anymore." They looked around and said "why do I suddenly feel good?"
The 1980s was that time, things stopped sucking. Reagan was a great national cheerleader. Although there are many who don't want to admit it, Reagan was actually liked. His administration was neither great nor awful, much like Carter's was. But he had charisma. He was in the right place at the right time, he was the national cheerleader during a time when the economy stopped being awful.
Now this is what is wrong with the 1980s. The economy no longer sucked, so there was the opportunity to address the underlying problems that almost collapsed the economy in the 1970s. The 1970s was almost the destruction of the economy but Volker saved the US. The opportunity was wasted though as the short sighted saw the recovery and said "all is well." No, all was not well, even though all was better. So by wasting the chance to fix the problems that were exposed by the malaise and stagflation of the 1970s, one could blame the 1980s for part of today's mess.
